


The Crackling of Dry Leaves

by luvsanime02



Series: Delete Winter [10]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Battles for Legal Guardianship, Court Mandated Therapy, Gen, Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3664197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi has found Mikasa. Now he has to fight to keep her, and her brother too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crackling of Dry Leaves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



**Disclaimer:** I don’t own Shingeki no Kyojin. That honor belongs to Isayama-sensei. I’m making no profit off of this fic.

########

 **The Crackling of Dry Leaves** by luvsanime02

########

Levi appeared at the courthouse with only one thought on his mind: he couldn’t fuck this up.

His life the last couple of months had been hell. Funny enough, he’d thought for a couple of minutes after he’d found his niece again that everything was finally settled. Then he’d found out that she’d somehow acquired a brother over the years, and it all gotten complicated again.

If this was the last time Levi ever had to set foot inside a courtroom, he might just fall down on his knees and kiss the floor in thanks.

Well, no, he wouldn’t, because the floor was filthy and disgusting and full of germs, but he’d still be really fucking thankful. He couldn’t believe how much effort it was to obtain legal guardianship of two annoying teenage brats. Although Levi knew that the problem the court had wasn’t him taking in Mikasa. It was Eren.

The brat who had no blood relationship to him but whose family had taken his niece in, sheltered her, _died_ for her, and kept her alive all these years by whatever means necessary. No, Eren might not be related to Levi by blood, but that didn’t make him any less family in the older man’s eyes. When Mikasa and Eren had packed up their few belongings, mostly clothes, and had come home with him, Levi hadn’t regretted his decision for one second.

He still didn’t. Even with all the court hearings establishing his case, and most importantly what Eren and Mikasa had been doing all of these years, Levi didn’t regret agreeing to take them both in.

All these _rules,_ though. They were going to drive Levi insane. It was lucky for him that he’d established his own practice after quitting the police force, instead of going off the grid like he’d been tempted to do. The courts and the fucking judge assigned to their case probably wouldn’t have approved of that.

As it was, Levi had seen more changes in his life these past few months than he’d thought possible. First, he’d had to move. His previous apartment had only been a one bedroom, and there just wasn’t enough space for two people, let alone three. So, he’d moved. And he’d hired a fucking lawyer and shown up to every hearing and passed all of their little tests. He’d let someone come into their place for a surprise inspection, which none of them had been happy about, but apparently he’d impressed them with how clean he kept his place - whatever.

He had set up court-mandated therapy sessions for all of them. This was probably the worst part of the whole thing. His therapist didn’t ask him to spill all of his life’s secrets or anything, but he did want to talk about why Levi was taking in two teenagers, if he’d thought it through, if he was prepared to handle any future incidents…

It was all so fucking tedious. Levi had already agreed to take them in, and so he would. This wasn’t a question. If problems came up, then he would deal with them then. His therapist wasn’t sure if Levi had fully accepted the reality of his situation if he wasn’t planning ahead. This was bullshit.

His therapy sessions weren’t anywhere near as bad as Eren’s, though. Mikasa and Eren had wanted to attend theirs together, but the court had ruled that they needed to try separate ones, to try and become not so codependent on each other. Levi could have told them that they were wasting their time.

Eren always ended up yelling or throwing things. The therapist was giving him some leniency, at least taking into account the brat’s detox and how his mood swings were normally caused by withdrawal. Still, anything said to Eren about the woman Levi had found him strangling was guaranteed to make him upset and likely violent.

Mikasa refused to speak during her sessions at all. Levi thought this was a brilliant way of going about things, and was often tempted to use the same method himself, but until his ‘temporary’ custody order had turned into a permanent one he had to at least pretend to cooperate. It was galling.

Also, thanks to the kids’ previous situation getting out, the courts had argued during no less than three different hearings about whether or not to let Mikasa and Eren remain in the same home. They’d been all for separating the two teenagers and letting Levi adopt Mikasa while putting Eren into foster care somewhere.

So, Levi had filed a separate petition to become Eren’s guardian, too. It was such a fucking hassle.

Especially since the last few months had been largely spent with all three of them trying to get used to each other. Well, Levi getting used to the brats and them to him. His therapist had asked about that too, had wanted to know of any little adjustments they were making to each other, any progress or unusual incidents at all. Levi brushed him off most of the time, sometimes told him something insignificant, but really, there were just too many differences in his daily life now to count.

Even setting aside having to deal with Eren’s night terrors and previous drug habit, Levi had not been prepared to live with teenagers. He wasn’t used to so much food needing to be cooked (and he couldn’t cook at all, really), or his sudden lack of personal space unless he locked the door to his bedroom, which he hated to do because he didn’t want either of them to feel like he was unavailable if they needed him.

Hell, the first time he’d opened up the bathroom cabinet to put away the toilet paper he’d just bought, and instead found a box of tampons sitting there, Levi had wanted to bash his head against the wall.

The point was, though, that Levi was _trying._ So were the brats. They were all attempting to adjust and cope, and they didn’t need all this fucking outside shit to deal with at the same time. They didn’t need to be forced to see a therapist, or to appear in court so much, or to be constantly threatened with being taken away from each other. Levi wasn’t even going to get into how much of a damn circus the media had been once their story had broken out, though thankfully not _all_ of the details.

What the three of them really needed was some damn time and space, so of course those were the last things being offered to them right now. Even as Levi was standing outside the courtroom for hopefully the last fucking time to hear the judge’s verdict on his guardianship of Mikasa and Eren, he had to ignore the stares from the media only waiting to pounce on him afterwards. He hoped the judge didn’t have too many last-minute questions, like his lawyer had warned him about. He hoped that their therapist hadn’t recommended them all for a psych ward somewhere. Mostly, he just hoped that this whole fucking mess would be over with after today, and that they could all stop worrying so much about it.

No, Levi could not fuck this up.


End file.
